With the
appointing of Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s current Prime Minister, as the
country’s new defense minister on March 17th, President
Obama was prompted to visit Israel last week. An interesting article I found in the Wall
Street Journal, published prior to Obama’s visit, outlined the likely topics of
discuss and the possible new power dynamic soon to come in the Middle East.
The article is titled Risking the ‘Finlandization’ of the Persian
Gulf, with a primary thesis stating, “A nuclear-armed Iran may bring
Soviet-style intimidation to the Middle East.” The main topic for discussion
during Obama’s visit will be weather time remains to prevent or delay an
Iranian bomb and what the consequences would be in failing to do so. This is
based on the assumption that Iran has yet to create a nuclear bomb, however
this assumption may be flawed.
Iran’s
intentions have been made clear, “to wipe Israel off the map”. Many find this
to implausible, but these intentions do not end with Israel. The article
continues to discuss the Tehran’s aspiration for domination of the Middle East
by tilting the balance of power by converting the Arab and Sunni perspective to
the Iranian Persian and Shiite views.
Finally,
the article discusses how Iran has been using the disorder of the Arab
revolution to advance this influence in majority Shiite populated areas under
Sunni rule. Concluding by drawing the analogy that Iran with nuclear bombs
would strongly influence weaker energy-rich neighboring countries, Saudi Arabia
and Turkey, in the same way that Germany influenced Finland during the Cold
War.
As our
recent class discussions regarding a one-state vs. two-state solution depicted
Palestinians as being completely on their own with no support from surrounding
Arab nations, this type of power dynamic could eliminate any progress
Palestinians have made toward establishing an independent nation state.
On a side
note, I am sure everyone has heard of the financial crisis currently unfolding
in Cyprus, which is geographically extremely close to Israel and the rest of
the Middle East. One recent piece of news you may not be aware of is where the
Russian money currently held in Cyprus banks will be going once the banks
reopen. There is rumor that a large portion of this Russian capital could be
heading for Israeli banks. If this proves to be true, it will be very interesting
to see how the United States will react in both their support of Israel and/or
direct involvement in Israeli banking.
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